SUPERHUMAN LIFE No. 3

VISIBLE EVIDENCE FROM OUTER SPACE

By Ernest O'Neill

Is there a superhuman life or is this a closed universe limited to what
we can see and touch? Right from our beginnings as a human race we and our
forefathers have always felt there has to be some power beyond this earth
who is ultimately responsible for our existing at all. In other words,
there has to be a first cause, however many intermediate or evolutionary
causes lie in between. However, this kind of reasoning consists primarily
of circumstantial evidence like the order and design in our world, the
existence of conscience, and the universal intuitive belief in a Supreme
Being. Is there any empirical evidence of a life above and beyond ours? Is
there any touch-and-see evidence of life from outer space?

The answer is "yes." In the first century of our era there
appeared on earth a remarkable human being. Unlike other religious leaders
who claimed to tell us human beings about the Supreme Being who originated
our world and our lives, this man did not die like a dog. This is what
happened to Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius, Zoroaster, Moses, and Jeremiah.
They told us a lot about the Creator of the world, but they themselves
succumbed to death like the rest of us. Their graves contain their bones
and there is no evidence that they ever left the earth or got beyond its
confines. This man Jesus told us he was the unique Son of the Creator of
the universe, but when he was killed and was buried, he came alive again,
moved among hundreds of people in Palestine for over a month, and then
simply disappeared off the earth. He explained that between his death and
his coming to life again he had been with His father, the Creator of the
world, and that he was going back to Him again to prepare a new world for
us.

This is the empirical evidence we have that there is a Creator with
superhuman life behind all that we see around us. However, there are
several obvious questions about evidence like this that we call empirical.
First, how reliable is the evidence that this man ever existed? Secondly,
how reliable is our present version of that evidence? Thirdly, does this
evidence clearly indicate a life that has come from outer space?

The first question is about the historicity of this remarkable human
being. Did he actually exist? Why believe that he did? The reason for
believing that this man Jesus existed is that the historians who tell us
about him were actual eye-witnesses of his actions and words. They didn't
hear it from others 500 years later as did the followers of Buddha, nor
did they read it in collections of myths as did the Hindus; people like
Peter and John lived and walked with Jesus of Nazareth. Peter put it like
this in the last quarter of a collection of books, known to us by their
Greek title "ta biblia," the Books: "For we did not follow
cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eye-witnesses of His majesty. For when
He received honour and glory from God the Father and the voice was borne
to Him by the Majestic Glory,

"'This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased," we
heard this voice borne from heaven, for we were with Him on the holy
mountain.' But how do we know that Peter was telling the truth that he was
an eye-witness: Because the life and death of this man Jesus was a
well-known public event and men like Peter were well-known by those who
were alive at that time. Other writers like Clementine, Ignatius, and
Barnabas refer to Peter and his writings during these years in the first
century a.d.

However, there is another reason for our certainty that these men who
have given us the best account of this remarkable life were actual
eye-witnesses who told the truth of what happened. Other historians whose
writings were not included in the Bible also referred to this Jesus. For
instance, Tacitus, the leading historian of Imperial Rome wrote in his "Annals":
"The author of that name (Christian) was Christ who in the reign of
Tiberius suffered punishment under his Procurator Pontius Pilate."
Even a Jewish historian, Josephus, confirms "There was about this
time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man for he was a
doer of wonderful works-- a teacher of such men as receive the truth with
pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the
Gentiles. He was Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the
principal men amongst us had condemned him to the cross, those that loved
him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again
the third day."

Is there other evidence that this unique human being lived in our world
and was in some way connected with the superhuman life behind our world?
Let's look in the next article at some overwhelming evidence in this
regard.